


all we do is think about the feelings that we hide

by wheezykaspbraks



Series: don't stop the car, let's drive [1]
Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mutual Pining, Road Trips, bc bev & rich, subtle but yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 00:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheezykaspbraks/pseuds/wheezykaspbraks
Summary: Richie gives him this look, slow and searching, that makes Eddie feel like every inch of his skin is being lit up like those cheap firecrackers that Richie had almost burned his house down with as a kid. “I was thinkin’ of going on a road trip after graduation, do you — I mean, you don’t have to if it’s not your thing or whatever, but you could — y’know, come with me, if you want.”A part of Eddie wants to laugh. He feels the words behind his teeth, a disbelievingno fucking way.He opens his mouth and says, “of course”, because of course, of course, of course. It’s always yes when it comes to Richie.





	all we do is think about the feelings that we hide

Richie’s smoking again, because of course he is.

It’s the tail-end of summer before their senior year, and Richie’s been smoking since their freshman year of high school, when Bev first brandished a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket at lunch. She’d brushed it off with a charming wink when Ben asked her where she got it from, and dug around in her bag to find a lighter.

Richie had near hacked up a lung on his first drag, big eyes watering behind his lenses. Stan had pinched his nose and complained about the smell, while Bill leaned forward across the table to ask how it tasted.

Richie, because he’s always such a goddamn trashmouth, had grinned through the tears and choked out, “Almost as good as Eddie’s mom.” and proceeded to wheeze through his laughter when Eddie angrily kicked out at him under the table.

Eddie doesn’t think he minds Richie smoking, really. Mostly. They’re dangerous, which, well — he _ really _ doesn’t like that. And he knows that they do a _ lot _more harm than good. But Richie gets antsy if he goes too long without, and he always seems looser around the shoulders afterwards, so Eddie tries not to harp on about it too much.

Except for times like now, with Richie sitting only a few inches away, taking a slow drag from the half-burnt cigarette between his fingers. He has nice fingers, long and slender and almost graceful, and also always covered in bandaids and various scratches and bruises, because the kid’s a walking talking disaster if Eddie’s ever met one.

Richie brushes his thumb over the base of the cigarette almost absently as he breathes out, the smoke clear in the night sky around them. Eddie cringes away, snapping, “Can you not?” as Richie takes another drag. He immediately feels kind of bad for it. Sometimes it feels like his only setting, at least when it comes to Richie. He’s always hated the idea that boys make fun of the girls they like, only partially because he most certainly _ doesn’t _like girls — and yet here he is, a good four years into crushing on his best friend and still bristling and snarling like some wild dog around him.

Richie, who knows him better than anyone, grins even as he turns his head to blow the cloud of smoke in the other direction. “Sorry, Eds.”

Eddie softens, rolls his eyes to hide it. “You know how my asthma is, asshole. Smoking around me is such a dick move.”

“Your _ fake _asthma.”

“Fuck you! It’s real to me, dick!” Eddie socks Richie on the arm. Richie cringes away over-dramatically, almost tilting right off the hood of the car. Eddie turns away to press his smile into his own shoulder. Richie annoys the fuck out of him, has _ always _annoyed the fuck out of him, and he thinks that he loves him for it.

He hears Richie laugh to himself, this quiet little chuckle that he so rarely hears. It fills the night air around them and Eddie doesn’t think he’d mind listening to that laugh for the rest of his life.

Richie drums the fingers of his free hand against the hood they’re sitting on. It’s a beaten down piece of junk, with a peeling paint job and a passenger door that always gets stuck and a trunk that never quite closes properly. Its engine rumbles a little too loudly, especially in the nighttime, and Richie always has to whisper a desperate _ come on, baby _ as he turns the key in the ignition before she splutters to life.

There’s a stack of books hidden under the seats because Stan likes to read while they drive; a pair of horrendously bright pink fuzzy dice hang from the rear view mirror from where Bev had insisted that the car needed a little extra color; Bill bakes for comfort and sends all of the losers home weekly with a container of freshly baked goods that leave the car smelling like cookies and cupcakes and everything sweet for days afterwards; Mike keeps a pack of gum hidden in between the back seats and regularly gets into scuffles with Richie when he pulls out a piece and Richie angrily waves a demanding hand in his direction that ends in them batting at each other’s arms uselessly; Ben gets easily carsick and doesn’t spend as much time in the car as the others, but there are a few mixtapes of his jammed into the glove console that Richie complains about with a smile at the corner of his mouth.

The car is Richie’s first and foremost, least of all because he was the one who spent years and worked several jobs over the summers to save up for it, but Eddie thinks that the car is all of theirs, at least a little bit.

Richie drives them around town at ungodly hours of the night for snack runs, takes time out of his own day to find perfect bird watching locations to take Stan, picks up Mike from the farm on mornings and afternoons that he doesn’t feel like waiting for their friend to ride all the way from the very outskirts of town. He takes them all to drive-in theatres where they cram into the small space uncomfortably, picks up ingredients for Bill’s weekly baking sessions, drives Bev, Ben and himself to concerts hours away and brings them back with stars in their eyes.

Sometimes he hops down the front steps of his house, swinging a set of too-loud keys around his fingers, grinning when he finds Eddie already leaning against the passenger door of his beloved car. Eddie always smiles back, blames the flush in his cheeks on the cold during the cooler months and the heat during the warmer months.

Sometimes they spend the night driving aimlessly around Derry, sometimes they hang out by the cliff overlooking the quarry, occasionally Richie will sneak the both of them into the Aladdin with a well-aimed wink at the girl who lets them in with a giggle and a blush that rivals Eddie’s own.

This night, Richie had driven them to Derry’s designated makeout overlook. He fluttered too-long-too-pretty eyelashes and smiled sweetly, and Eddie rolled his eyes like he hadn’t spent years wanting to kiss his best friend.

“You wound me, Eds.” Richie had said as he joined Eddie on the hood, already shaking a cigarette free from the pack. “Really truly, I brought you to the most romantic place I could think of and you won’t even kiss me? Not one little smoochy-boo?”

Eddie, heart aching stupidly in his chest, replied, “If this is the most romantic place you can think of, suddenly your lacklustre love life makes a lot more sense.”

Richie had barked a delighted laugh that sounded way too loud in the night as he flicked his lighter.

Richie drums his fingers on the hood again, left-to-right then right-to-left, bringing Eddie out of his thoughts. He casts a glance at Richie, hates how his heart feels like it’s lodged in his throat at how unfairly pretty Richie looks. Those horrible thick-framed glasses are still a regular member of their group, on the days that Richie goes without contacts, although they’re almost hidden under Richie’s unkempt mop of curls. They sweep just under his ears and brush his shoulders when wet, an uncontrollable mess of curls that Eddie has spent way too many daydreams thinking about sinking his fingers into.

Richie’s eyes are closed behind his lenses, head tilted back to expose the length of his neck. There’s a freckle on the junction of his shoulder that Eddie kind of wants to kiss, and one on the curve of his jaw that Eddie _ definitely _wants to put his mouth on. A sweet little smile is curving the corner of his mouth, and his voice is quieter than before when he murmurs, “You done staring or do you want me to stay like this?”

Eddie jolts, cuts his gaze away sharply. “I wasn’t staring, weirdo, you weren‘t moving and I’d hoped you died.”

Richie gives that quiet laugh again, taking a final hit from his cigarette before he flicks it onto the dirt road. “Of course, sweetheart. If I ever died, it would be because you’re just too cute and my heart gives out.”

“Don’t _ call _ me that, fuck’s sake.” Eddie drags his knees up to his chest. Summer nights in Derry are warm enough that Eddie is able to get away with shorts, and this night is no exception.

“Aw, but _ Eds_.” Richie croons, throwing an arm around his shoulders to draw him in close. “You always blush so _ pretty _when I call you cute.”

Eddie shoves him away, scowling, hating that he’s right. He’s always been an easy blusher, and a full-body blusher to boot; Richie coos _ Eddie Spaghetti _ and _ my love _ and _ dear _in those sickeningly sweet voices, and Eddie’s face burns in some kind of Pavlovian response.

“Beep beep, Rich.” Eddie manages to squirm away from Richie’s grip, and Richie lets him go easily, knowing when enough is enough. He just throws out one of those charming smiles and leans back on his hands, humming a tune that Eddie thinks he vaguely recognizes.

“Hey,” Richie says after a while. “D’you have plans for after we graduate?”

Eddie raises his eyebrows, “That’s almost a year away, Rich, didn’t know you could think that far ahead.”

Richie rolls his eyes, “Haha, wiseguy, look at you, trashin’ the trashmouth! Who'da thunk it, huh?”

The laugh bubbles up out of nowhere and Richie grins when he hears it. “Jesus, shut the fuck up, Richie. No, I don’t have plans, do _ you _?”

“Wait, wait, Eds — what do you _ mean _you don’t have plans?”

“I don’t? Have plans? Why’d you ask, weirdo.”

“No, I just,” Richie whistles lowly. “You always planned on going into medicine, right? Why’d you change your mind?”

Eddie grimaces. Years later and his mother’s deceit is still a sore subject. It took awhile for him to admit to himself that he never really had any interest in becoming a nurse or a doctor or going into the medical field at all, and that revelation had caused a major breakdown around his sixteenth birthday. It’s been over a year and Eddie tries not to think too hard about his future. It always just ends with that familiar chest-tightening, airway-constricting feeling of panic that he believed for so many years to be asthma.

Even now, knowing that his medication has always been bullshit, he still finds comfort in the presence and reassurance of his inhaler. He can handle Richie’s smoking most of the time, but on bad days the tickle of smoke in his lungs sets him off like nothing else. He has over ten years of conditioning to undo and to this day he still feels sick and panicky at the thought of germs and diseases and sicknesses and everything bad and gross.

“A lot of reasons.” Eddie finally replies. He stares out over the town, only a smattering of lights still on this late. “It was never really my choice to follow that path, Rich. I just spent so long expecting to do it that I don’t know what to do with my life now. And — “ he cuts a glance at Richie, finds curious brown eyes and understanding in the soft curve of an even softer mouth. “I don’t know, I’m just scared or whatever. I don’t want to graduate, I don’t want to be stuck with my mother for the rest of my life, I don’t want the losers to drift apart like all adults do. I don’t really like to think about it.”

Richie gives him this look, slow and searching, that makes Eddie feel like every inch of his skin is being lit up like those cheap firecrackers that Richie had almost burned his house down with as a kid. “I was thinkin’ of going on a road trip after graduation, do you — I mean, you don’t have to if it’s not your thing or whatever, but you could — y’know, come with me, if you want.”

A part of Eddie wants to laugh. He feels the words behind his teeth, a disbelieving _ no fucking way_. He opens his mouth and says, “of course”, because of course, of course, of course. It’s always yes when it comes to Richie.

Sometimes Eddie wishes he were a stronger man. Then he catches sight of one of Richie’s grins and he thinks that stronger men might not feel the way he does about that kid, and he thinks that he got the lucky end of the stick.

Richie still has that grin, that beaming _ everything's coming up Richie _ smile that sets Eddie’s stomach on fire and his heart fluttering and makes his palms feel all kinds of sweaty and gross for no reason. Too-long hair brushes against pink cheeks as he teases, “The big spaghetti man ready to go see the world?” and Eddie dryly _ beep-beep _ s him, steadfastly avoiding the soft look Richie throws his way when he lets their hands brush. Richie hooks their pinkies together without saying anything, staring out over the town they grew up in with a smile. Eddie knows that he can’t wait to get the fuck out of there, and he can hardly breathe because _ he’s leaving too _and it’s terrifying and it’s all he’s ever wanted.

—

The girl at the Aladdin puts in a good word for Richie a few days later, and he picks up the first of his many jobs in the quest to save as much cash as possible for their road trip. Eddie does the same, helping out with admittedly smaller jobs around the town. He’s always been known as _ Sonia’s nice young boy, look at him all grown up, working hard like a man, oh aren’t we so proud of him_, and it’s easy to slip on his yes-mama-no-mama-thank-you-mama smile when they pinch his cheeks and coo over his _ very _practical fanny pack.

He alphabetizes Mrs. Hill's extensive book collection, spends a weekend helping to paint the side of a house in overalls that Richie cries _ cute cute cute _ over when he sees, chips in with sorting out the young Russel twins’ room for a garage sale and smiles politely even as they crawl all over him shouting that they want to keep _ all _of their toys, despite their mother’s firm instructions otherwise.

The rest of the Losers are clearly curious about their sudden increased work ethic, prodding and pleading and occasionally attempting blackmail, but Eddie and Richie manage to keep their mouths shut for the first few weeks into the senior year. Finally, Richie blurts out, “Me ‘n Eds are takin’ a road trip!” mid-conversation at lunch, and Eddie shakes his head fondly, unable to be truly upset with how relieved Richie looks. Keeping secrets, especially ones that he really wants to tell, has always weighed on their trashmouth more than any of the other Losers.

“_What?” _ Stan is the first to break the silence.

Richie beams, “After we graduate! That’s why we’re working so much, you know. We wanna be _ rich _rich by the time we leave.”

“And by that he means to have enough money to afford basic necessities.” Eddie cuts in. Richie nods eagerly, sighing a dreamy, _ we’ll be kings among men, eating one or maybe even two meals a day! _

Ben’s smiling, leaning in closer across the table, “That sounds cool! Make sure you make heaps of mixes, Richie.”

Richie nods grimly, “Don’t worry, Benny-boy, there will be _ so many _mixtapes.”

Ben grins like he’s appeased, falling back into his own seat beside Mike, who looks as weary as Stan but a little more excited.

“Aw,” Beverly leans against Richie’s shoulder with a pout, “No way! Who’s gonna smoke with me if you’re gone, Tozier? One of these losers? No way, I’m gonna be so alone.”

Bill interjects a weak _ hey!_ that definitely gets ignored under Richie’s whining. “Aw, Bevvy, is that all I am to you?”

Bev laughs and pulls him in for a one-armed hug, dragging Bill in under her other arm and ruffling his perfectly styled hair in a way that makes him squawk in protest. Eddie’s heart aches with how much he loves them, how much he loves all of his Losers. They’re the best things that have ever happened to him and sometimes he thinks he can’t breathe with how much he adores them, is going to suffocate on the infinite ways he feels for them. He thinks it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.

—

Bev’s aunt ushers the group into her house with a smile and an offer for freshly made cocoa. She’s a sweet lady, who dropped everything and moved to Derry a few years back after the death of her brother. It’s clear to anyone that Beverly adores her aunt, after spending a lifetime desperate for a caring parental figure.

Bev has never liked to talk about her dad, even while he was still alive — after what happened to him when they were younger, she seemed even less inclined to do so. Eddie wasn’t clueless; he knew how to spot the signs. Sweet Beverly who still cringes away from non-initiated physical touch and curls her lip in disgust at the mention of fathers; Richie who sometimes looks like he’s made of skin and bones and knocks on Eddie’s window at 2am smelling of alcohol with shards of glass in his hair that Eddie has to carefully pick out while Richie jokes his way through it all with a voice that’s somehow more shattered than the glass; the kid in his Chemistry class who always seems to have bruises that he tries to hide with grown-out hair and long sleeves and averted gazes.

Eddie hovers at the back of the group, and realizes that Richie’s decision to leave makes a lot more sense when he thinks about it like that.

Beverly looks back to him with a dazzling smile that he grins at. Beverly’s happy here, and the rest of the Losers have begun to see her place as something of a refuge during the cooler months when spending hours by the barrens aren’t an option.

Her aunt compliments his sweater and he beams, fiddling with the collar. He spots Richie looking at him out of the corner of his eye. That soft look is back, and Eddie’s stomach feels like it does during his panic attacks, but the urge to run or grasp for his inhaler isn’t there. It’s softer, more comfortable. Richie looks at him like he’s everything in the world and he likes the sick-nervous-fluttery way it makes him feel. Sometimes he hopes he makes Richie feel the same way.

—

Eddie’s been leaving his bedroom window open for years. He smiles politely when his mother putters around his room before she heads for bed, fretting over the unlocked window and _ you have to be careful, Eddie-bear, what if something were to happen to you? _Sometimes Eddie thinks his mother wouldn’t terribly mind if something happened to him so long as it kept him by her side.

He waits till he hears her snores from the other end of the house before he gets up to slide the window open a few inches. Most nights, like clockwork, he gets a few pages into his current homework before he hears the familiar sound of Richie scaling the house. It involves a lot of scuffling and grunting and quiet cursing, and every time Eddie sends up a thankful prayer that his mother is such a heavy sleeper.

When Richie finally opens the window properly and sticks his head through, he’s flushed and bright-eyed and Eddie rolls his eyes even as he thinks that he might be in love.

“Spaghetti man!” Richie crows when he manages to wriggle through the window, all flailing too-long limbs. Eddie closes the textbook, placing it among the other books scattered around himself.

“Your glasses are broken.” He leans back on his elbows. “What did you do this time?”

Richie gives a sheepish laugh as he fiddles with the broken frame. “You’ll never believe it, Eds, I totally tripped down the stairs and landed on them. Pretty lucky only one of the arms is jacked, huh?” Eddie raises an eyebrow. Richie clears his throat, gaze straying to the books. “Oooh, look at you! Workin’ hard or hardly workin’, Eds?”

“Working harder than you ever have.” Eddie shoots back.

Richie laughs as he collects the books, moving them to the desk on the other side of the room. He’s always been messy, in a way that makes Stan freak out whenever he spends any extended period of time in his room. His bed is perpetually messy, both dirty and clean clothes scattered over the floor, books and records piled precariously on any free space. The walls are covered in various band and horror movie posters, occasionally interspersed with Polaroids of the Losers, because Bill has been super into photography and they all insist on keeping his best pictures. Bill always glows with delight even as he protests. Eddie keeps his own copies pressed between the pages of one of his books, hidden away from his mother’s eyes; there’s nothing particularly scandalous about any of them, even by her standards, but he likes to think that he at least has _ this _ to himself.

Despite Richie’s lack of order in his own room, he takes care to straighten out Eddie’s books on the corner of the desk. He even takes a moment to reorder them, smallest to largest on the bottom. Eddie himself has never been messy the way Richie is, but he also isn’t obsessed with order like Stan; he prefers cleanliness over tidiness. He presses his smile into his hand, because Richie might be an asshole but he’s also a sweetheart when he wants to be.

When he turns around, Richie flings himself onto the bed beside Eddie, laughing into the pillows as Eddie hisses, “shoes _ off_, Tozier, you know the rules.” He makes a big show out of dragging himself onto his back and toeing out of his shoes. They’re a shocking purple canvas that matches the overshirt he’s wearing, covered in various yellow-and-blue shapes like a spray of horrifyingly bright confetti. It’s one of the most hideous things Eddie’s ever seen and he loves it.

“Hi.” Richie says when he settles back down, on his side this time. They’re face-to-face and Eddie can feel Richie’s jeans against his bare knees, because the bed is only a single and squeezing two teenage boys onto it is bound to involve some form of contact.

Eddie makes himself sound as bored as possible as he drawls back, “Hi, trashmouth.”

Richie grins, the special smile he gets when he thinks Eddie’s doing something extra cute. “You’re adorable when you act all annoyed, you know.”

“Will I still be adorable when I kick your lanky ass out of my room?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, moving onto his back. He feels more than sees Richie shift in closer against his side.

“Eds,” Richie’s voice is lower when he speaks next, “these shorts are cute, they new?”

Fingers brush against the hem of Eddie’s, yes, new shorts. “Sure are. Sorry, I don’t think your fatass could fit into them.”

Richie barks a delighted laugh as he presses his face into Eddie’s shoulder, “Jesus, Eds, you’re the love of my life, no two ways about it.”

“Dear _ god _I hope not.”

Another laugh gets muffled into the fabric of his sleep shirt. Richie’s hair brushes soft against the underside of Eddie’s jaw.

“Hey,” Richie murmurs a while later. “Are we stayin’ in tonight?”

Eddie hums. “I don’t really feel like going out. Do you wanna stay in tonight?”

“I’m good as long as I’m with you, Eddie-bear.”

“I hate you _ so much_.” Eddie rolls away from Richie, curling himself up and pointedly hunching his shoulders up near his ears. Richie’s laugh comes as a soft puff of air against the back of his neck as he curls around Eddie’s form. A part of him wants to be annoyed but, well. This always inevitably ends up happening. Sometimes Richie wants to be the big spoon, and some nights he likes having Eddie against his back, but either way someone always ends up getting spooned.

Richie loosely drapes an arm over Eddie’s waist and brushes a still-cold nose against the nape of his neck.

Eddie always sleeps best when Richie is with him.

—

A week after graduation, Eddie slips out of his bedroom window with two duffles slung over his shoulders and a bright yellow post-it stuck to his headboard. A part of him knows that the messily scrawled _ going away for a while _will only serve to freak out his overbearing mother. A bigger part of him doesn’t care. It’s easier than telling her that he never plans on coming back.

Richie sits in the car a few houses down, engine idling. The trunk is crowded with boxes and bags and Eddie takes a minute to shove his duffles in. He has to shut the trunk three times before it stays closed.

Richie shoots Eddie a cute two-fingered salute that Eddie rolls his eyes at. He’s smoking, because he’s Richie and he’s always smoking. The overhead light is on, although it keeps flickering, and Eddie grins to himself as he opens the passenger side door because Richie is wearing one of his trademark hideous hawaiian-print shirts over what looks to be like a band tee. The car smells like several different types of cologne and the bright floral perfume that Beverly always wears, and Bill’s weekly baked goods, and fresh smoke. It feels more like a home than the two-story they drive away from.

It’s the middle of the night when they pass the faded _ now leaving Derry, come back soon! _sign on the outskirts of town. Richie lays on the horn as they fly past, and Eddie allows himself to shout “fuck you!”

Fuck Sonia Kaspbrak, fuck Mr. Keene and his placebo bullshit, fuck all of the assholes who made his life hell, fuck everyone still stuck in that piece of shit town. Him and Richie are finally out, Ben, Stan and Bev are all off at their respective colleges, Bill and Mike have already signed for an ugly little apartment several hours away from the town they all grew up in. Everyone he cares about is far away from Derry, and none of them are ever going back.

He shouts, “fuck you!” again as the sign fades away in the rear view mirror, chest burning with something like one of his bullshit asthma attacks. For a moment he feels more fire than person, flaming and billowing and free.

Richie laughs when Eddie slumps back in his seat with a grin, “You feelin’ alright there, spaghetti?”

Eddie looks at the glare from the streetlights bouncing off Richie’s glasses, glances at summer-darkened freckles and day-old stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave and the white little nick on Richie’s lower lip from where a fight had earned him a split lip that scarred. To this day Richie still shows off the mark like it’s a battle scar and Eddie loves him for it.

“Yeah,” Eddie hangs an arm out of the car window, feeling the early summer air through his fingers. “I’ve never felt better, Rich.”

Richie reaches over to rummage through the glove compartment before triumphantly pulling out a cassette tape. The label says _ road trip; a new beginning _ in Richie’s familiar chicken scratch, which is maybe the dorkiest thing he’s ever seen. Eddie drums his fingers between them to the low bass that fills the car.

“A new beginning?” he teases, “How many road trip mixes have you made?”

Richie shoots him a grin, “Oh, Eds,” he reaches out to hold Eddie’s hand, “my love, sweetheart, darling. You have _ no _ idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> so. yeah. uh. might make a pt 2 to this where u see them actually on the road! + id love to write abt the other losers & their childhoods a little more. also. i wanna expand on their relationship so they're actually Together,, sooooo i guess we'll see!!


End file.
